


In The Realm of The Senses

by ohmyvalar



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dubious Morality, M/M, Sexual Content, Threesome - M/M/M, canon-typical pretentious mediations on faux-philosophies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-22 06:48:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17657981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyvalar/pseuds/ohmyvalar
Summary: Lord Henry Wotton visits Dorian Gray one stormy afternoon.-“So what is it that plagues your mind, Dorian?”The young man shuddered. “My dreams of late have been dark with strange desires. I should not dare to share them even with you, Harry, though you are my dearest confessor.” The depths of his eyes glinted with a restless fervor.“And yet I perceive the desire to expunge these thoughts as foremost among them. Come, Dorian, give your morbid dreams voice and unburden your mind.” Lord Henry persuaded, in the low, melodious voice he used to cajole tedious aunts and coax young fawning ladies.





	In The Realm of The Senses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Binary_Sunset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Binary_Sunset/gifts).



> hi!! this is a lil bit of a mash up of your prompts, but i hope you can still enjoy your gift!! ^_^ also, this turned out way longer than i originally intended;; mostly bc Lord Henry simply could not shut up lol
> 
> additional warnings in author notes at the end to avoid spoilers. but none of the major ao3 warnings explicitly apply!

There are days on which the heavens themselves darken and mercurial-grey clouds roil ominously in the ashen sky, as if reflecting some exquisitely private torment of souls that would soon come to a violent end. 

For those among us who harbor secrets and yet feel the pangs of conscience, such days are dark days indeed. These poor creatures may attempt to cheat themselves of fear by hiding from prying eyes, or by hurling headlong into the temporary relief of their very sins. To these effects the very wise and very foolish are of course quite impervious. 

It was on such a cloud-worried afternoon that Lord Henry Wotton decided to seek refuge from the uninspiring weather at his young friend Dorian Gray’s house. 

Upon announcing himself to the grim-faced steward, he was received with flattering swiftness in the drawing-room. 

The young lord noted with approval that the decor of the interior was now in a much more ostentatious style. A large, gleaming crystal chandelier hung over brown Turkish carpets of exquisite intricacy. The foreign aesthetic of the room was accentuated by an unfamiliar but cloying fragrance of incense. 

How he loved encouraging the youth to splendour! Indeed there was nothing else to do for a wealthy, idle and beautiful young thing like Dorian but to surround himself with all the pleasures his considerable attributes could yield. 

The master of the house himself was standing still by the window, through which the unhappy weather beyond was in full view. Now that Lord Henry focused his gaze on his friend, he perceived a similar turmoil of emotions in Dorian’s tense frame. 

Now that would not do. He had come for mutual comfort, not distress. In a firm but benevolent paternal manner Lord Henry crossed the room and gently pulled the silk curtains shut. 

The motion appeared to rouse Dorian from his trance. “Oh, Harry,” he murmured, as if awakening from a horrifying dream. 

He turned towards his guest. Lord Henry saw that his face was as pale as the silk sheets of his imported curtains. He was wearing only a rich velvet purple shift of a nightgown, the low collar of which revealed thinly perspiring skin at his neck. An exquisite slip of a thing, it was true, but not quite the suitable attire for receiving guests, as a gentleman of Dorian’s status could not fail to know. 

“Why, my dear boy. I do hope I have not disturbed you at an untimely hour.”

“No - no,” the young man repeated. “It cannot be an untimely hour still, can it? In fact I do not quite know what time it is at all. I have been having the most terrible dreams, Harry. They have transfixed my thoughts ever since I awoke to this terrible weather.”

This was quite an unexpected turn of events. Lord Henry had anticipated a pleasant afternoon spent eliciting thoughts from the delightful young boy's mind, with the sole goal of cheerfully dispersing the gloom. 

But now he saw that another opportunity to look into Dorian’s mind had presented itself. 

“In that case I shall sit with you and tell you how perfectly meaningless all dreams are, and how nothing so silly must mar your beautiful face with frown lines.” Lord Henry replied soothingly, placing a light hand on Dorian’s arm. 

The young man closed his eyes against the touch, and seemed to relax. At length he regained his will and summoned a weak smile. “I have been remiss in my duties as master to a most honored guest. Please, sit down.”

The two men retired to separate couches facing each other across the mantlepiece. 

“So what is it that plagues your mind, Dorian?”

The young man shuddered. “My dreams of late have been dark with strange desires. I should not dare to share them even with you, Harry, though you are my dearest confessor.” The depths of his eyes glinted with a restless fervor. 

“And yet I perceive the desire to expunge these thoughts as foremost among them. Come, Dorian, give your morbid dreams voice and unburden your mind.” Lord Henry persuaded, in the low, melodious voice he used to cajole tedious aunts and coax young fawning ladies. 

It was a perfected maneuver he had had much practice in. And to his amused pleasure the young lad indeed seemed to waver. 

“You must promise not to become - disturbed - or worse - laugh at me, Harry. Else I shall never find it in myself to tell you anything ever again.”

The young lord smiled, and arranged himself languidly on the couch as if preparing for a long fireside tale. “There is nothing in this modern world that can quite disturb me from my studies of History. As for laughter - how can one help but laugh? When faced with the neverending horrors of our contemporary society - really, it is the only thing to do. And I do promise, my dear boy.”

Dorian’s fine brows knitted, and a bitter smile shaped his scarlet lips. But the indecision clouding his handsome face had lifted. “Oh, very well - you know I cannot win in any argument against you, when you have taught me so much of what I am now. I suppose of all the people you have set your mind to influence, none have quite escaped unscathed. Except perhaps - Basil.”

There had been a queer stilt in the young lad’s usually eloquent speech at the mention of their mutual friend's name. Lord Henry took note of it quietly, but otherwise allowed no other reaction to show on his face. He made an encouraging gesture for his storyteller to go on.

“He is there, Harry. In my dreams of Greek fire and vivid desires. In that wretched shambles of poor dead Sybil Vane’s theatre house I am Nero playing the lyre and he all of righteous Rome! Or I am Faustus before the Angels, except he is somewhere betwixt them and my relishing deliverer to Hell. He is in them all. Some - sometimes they seem so true to life that I almost believe this waking world to be but a conjured shade of that visceral dreamland, and - oh, Harry, most terrible of all! - Basil to be staring into my very soul! Scourging all my secrets with his indeceivable artist’s eyes, baring my greatest sins and joys to his Olympian judgement! … Although it cannot be. I...” 

“Basil? Oh, Basil believes that he has seen through me a long time ago; and what is more sometimes I am sure he has succeeded too.” The young lord sighed melodramatically to disguise the stirrings of genuinity in his words. 

“But - and I mean no offense, Dorian - I cannot think him overly concerned with your soul. When an artist such as he has exhausted one interpretation of a muse, he invariably seeks to portray them in exactly the opposite spirit. And how better, how more natural, but to have the muse’s own character altered so?” 

A familiar, vaguely bitter expression flickered across Dorian’s face. On any other face it would have been distasteful - but on Dorian’s it merely created an effect not unlike the rightful scorn Penelope might have affected against Nausicaa. 

“What is it, my dear boy? I know that look. Do ask away; there is no secret I would not gladly divulge to satisfy your curiosity.” 

Dorian gave a short, tense laugh. “Oh, Harry. I should be very foolish if I had not learnt by now that the only favor thus served would be to your own pleasure in sharing gossip.” Then his face took on a more serious set. “Although in truth… There is something I have long wished to ask you.”

Lord Henry lifted an elegant eyebrow. “I shall put aside that slight for the very pleasure you accused me of. Go on.” He gestured magnanimously at his companion. 

The young man sat at his couch a hesitating moment more, then stood up abruptly and walked to the mantlepiece. 

There he stood still, turned away from Lord Henry. A tension was in his frame; a tension which made the line of his back an exquisite work of art Basil would no doubt itch to sketch were he present with them in the room. 

Or perhaps he already had done so before. Lord Henry did not understand the workings of material art; his immediate interests lay in the more abstract aesthetics of the mind. 

He waited patiently for Dorian to voice his thoughts. 

“I have long wondered of your relationship with Basil, Harry.”

“Do elaborate, dear boy. What of our relationship weighs on your mind so?”

“Oh, your long talks in his painting studio, your friendly arguments, and all the things you speak to each other of which I know nothing about. Indeed I confess I am rather vexed that I shall never know anything of your acquaintance before me.”

Lord Henry blinked slowly. Oh, this was a novel inquisition from Dorian. He set his teacup back down on the settee with interest. “My dear boy, is that jealousy I detect?” Light laughter spilled from his lips. 

Dorian spun around, a look of intense agitation contorting his fine features. “I do not understand why you encourage me to these things, only to wash your hands of the matter and laugh that indifferent laugh of yours.”

“You misunderstand me, Dorian. I merely wish to point out the irony of your suspicions about my history with dear old Basil, when in fact it is your appearance that has driven quite a wedge between us. As of indifference - accuse me of ought else, but never of indifference towards you! For have I not forsaken my old friend to retain the pleasure of your continued company?” 

This answer did not seem to satisfy Dorian. “Then will you tell me of the nature of your relationship?” He insisted, with a frown that managed to be endearing instead of irritating. 

“Well.” Lord Henry paused for a moment, twining an unlit cigarette between his long, elegant fingers. Then, noticing his companion's impatience, he added, “Do not mistake me, Dorian. I tarry not in hope that you might lose interest and give the subject up, but that I may compose such a narrative that you shall be assured of my most ardent sincerity and seriousness.”

The young man gave a half-disbelieving laugh, but appeared otherwise mollified. “I only wish you are not thinking up some perfunctory play-script to deflect me with, Harry. I have risked your scorn by revealing my keenness for the topic, and can only hope you shall reward me with some measure of truth.”

“Never, never scorn!” Lord Henry cried - in indeed a rather perfunctory manner. Then, on perceiving this error, he continued, “I shall begin forthwith.”

“In my youth - that is to say, in the bygone days when my late lord father yet clung obstinately to life and ruled his spawn with draconic claws - I found my movements in society severely restricted. ‘Good society,’ that old gentleman used to berate, was ‘gone to pieces’. ‘Nowadays everyone who wishes to be popular must needs keep a peddler of wares in their set; oh a vulgar artist I suppose, or some sort of entertaining, harmless foreigner’. Well, as the latter are in rather short supply in our conservative circles, I set out looking for an artist to call my own straight upon hearing this sound advice.”

Pausing here for dramatic effect, the young lord slid a glance at his audience. 

He was not disappointed by the response to his story. Dorian, by now used to his friend’s long paradoxical axioms, was listening intently; although the coil of tension within him that had been evident since Lord Henry entered the room remained. 

“For months I searched the streets for exactly the sort of individual who would, upon friendly introduction, finally send my dear old lord father into his long-anticipated grave. I delved into third-rate theatre, dabbled with heathen arts; fell passionately in and out of love with undiscovered ingenues, and acquired many paintings of precisely no artistic value. Along the way I found many suitable to the simple purpose of delivering the old chap; but after a series of mediocrities the desire to find someone of true talent had awakened in myself. And so I continued on my quest. Several more months passed in this manner. But it was all in vain. I had not found a person who embodied all of my ideals of Art and its creation in physical form.

And that was when I met Basil Hallward.”

Lord Henry halted once more. Faced with Dorian’s anxious, reproachful gaze, he leisurely extracted a cigarette and proceeded to light it with a practiced flick of the lighter. “Patience, my dear boy. For all tales grow better with teasing application of delay.” 

“Dear old Basil! Ah, our friend was only a middling artist in those days. Not quite presentable to Society, but very much an ambitious youth in pursuit of elevating his art. He was poor, quite penniless really, back then - not even a servant to carry his easels and paints around, imagine that! - and upon our acquaintance I was so taken with him that I at once invited him to stay with me at my place in London. 

Of course he refused me at first, being of a proud, self-sufficient nature, but I endeavored to seduce him with my collection of unused paints and other artistic materials. To think I went so far as to set out a space for his use as a studio! Truly, the infatuations of the young are foolish, but really rather exciting. I wholly recommend - no, I prescribe it, Dorian. Eventually he acquiesced - with every manner of a martyred elder sister settling for an inferior husband that her younger siblings - his art - might fare better. He did not like me very much in those first days, I'm afraid.

But we grew close. As they say, proximity breedeth love; and an understanding rooted between us. And now I dare say it has borne fruit in your appearance.” 

“Ah -” and here the young lord held up an anticipatory finger - “I see that you doubt me, Dorian, and rightly so. For in our friend now there seems little pride, except perhaps in certain assured achievements of his art.” 

“... The thought did occur to me, Harry.” Dorian had leant forwards in his seat. His desire to hear the story had evidently not flagged, but there was a disappointed line to his brow that suggested this was not quite what he wished to know. _Interesting_. 

“How could it not? A man modest in his wants, who at his most extravagant keeps only one member of staff, and lavishes his expenses on only art materials: all for the morals and philosophies he gave himself. And yet the truth is that it is men such as Basil who are the proudest of all.

For what are beliefs but thoughts, projections of our minds that can take no physical form save in our own self-convinced creations? Every day in this modern world the most fantastical new ideas are raised, and not a single one shall reign forever. Some choose one, or a few, then bind their actions and life to them thereafter and call it moral fortitude, when it is in fact a weakness of the soul which disallows them to hold multiple, contradictory ideas in their mind at one time. No, I should much rather master the workings of all schools of thought and yet behold myself to none. Men like Basil, once having chosen their rigid philosophies, indeed determine their own eventual fate - for when circumstances in life contravene their sacred beliefs they fall into the most terrible danger.”

“... What can you mean by that?” Dorian’s sweet voice was like a trembling glade in a storm-rent meadow. 

Half of his face was hidden in the shadows of the room; but the remaining visage was so innocently beautific, so like Ganymede carved from stone, that no one looking upon it could suspect any sinister influence. 

“Why, Dorian, but that such men easily fall victim to either murder or murdering,” Lord Henry finished in bemusement, his delight for regaling audiences with paradoxical aphorisms for once weighed out by curiosity regarding the boy's queer mood. 

“What is wrong, my dear boy? You are really looking quite beside yourself.”

Dorian was now indeed as white as the pristine lilies which adorned the coffee table between them. The young lord began to discern that what he initially dismissed as nothing more than a rosy youth’s untouched fear of violent weathers might in actuality be something more rooted in mortal cause and consequence. 

“I - it is nothing, Harry. You must continue to tell me about you and Basil. Yes; nothing can be more important to me now than that. And nothing better able to cure my - my present illness.”

Lord Henry examined his companion with a long and considering look. Indeed the young lad looked rather unwell; while his physical aspect was unaltered, something about him seemed to have undergone an undetected transformation. 

It occurred to him that he had never once seen Dorian fall to a serious sickness - save the sort gentlemen proclaimed to gracefully escape respectable company - just as his appearance had remained unchanged all these past years since their acquaintance. 

He wondered what their absent friend would think of his muse growing sickly. Surely Basil would devise some new form of portraiture for the very theme. An image of Dorian’s handsome face superimposed on one of those terrible Middle Age depictions of Christian suffering caused him to shiver in horror. 

“Be that as it may, Dorian - I may disdain modern medicine for the natural curative powers of looking upon Beauty, but beauty such as yours must not risk being tarnished by any omission.” Lord Henry cried in alarm. 

The young lad shut his eyes as if against some overwhelming emotion. When they opened once more they were glittering with unshed tears. “If you love me half as well as you say you do, you will continue with your story. Oh, Harry, if only you knew how utterly alone I feel in this world!”

Ah, was it only jealousy after all? Lord Henry took his cigarette to his lips and exhaled ponderously. The thick cloud of smoke thus emitted created a rather wondrously abstract effect on Dorian’s words through his obscured visage. He could scant think of another reason for the young lad to be so persistent in seeking knowledge of his relationship with Basil. And the young and innocent, after all, were often given to flights of dramatic fancy - for the precise reason of always being tolerated because of their former attributes. 

_Yes,_ Lord Henry thought, his gaze roving over the emotional young lad. _For what other reason can this strange fit have resulted in one yet so beautiful and loved, but for fear that he himself was no longer either?_

Dorian’s heart-rent expression, conspicuously guilty in the way only the innocent can manage, seemed to corroborate this deduction. It was really a very romantic situation, Lord Henry concluded, and duly congratulated himself for having imagined it. 

And suddenly a new game occurred to the young lord. 

“Oh, come. Come closer, my dear boy.”

Dorian looked up carefully at him, as if afraid he had discovered some truth he desperately wanted kept secret. _Ah, the follies of youth,_ smiled Lord Henry privately. What could the indiscretions of boyish love flings hurt him, a veteran of many? 

“Come here, and I shall tell you every detail of how Basil and I have become the closest of companions.” The young lord murmured softly, extending an arm on the couch and resting his head on it. It was another patented look of seduction he had long tried and tested. 

And the intended effect was achieved. Whether from his own torturous curiosity or indeed his friend’s practiced charm, Dorian stood and began to walk slowly towards him.

As the young lad approached, the chandelier’s light played sharp shadows across his face - and Lord Henry saw that his expressive eyes were glazed with some dark influence external to him. 

Intrigued and more than a little vexed, the young lord reached out and placed a hand on Dorian’s shoulder. The difference in their heights was such that, sitting, he could do so without his friend having to stoop. 

An icy blush stole over the lad’s skin like a blooming frozen flower at the contact. Lord Henry distantly entertained the idea of pressing his thumb into the cool skin beneath the velvety silk of his gown, of inducing a heated rush of high color into the lad with his fingers alone, of reintroducing his influence so deeply into his companion that no other would be able to entirely flush it out. 

Of course, that would only spook the young lad. And so Lord Henry contented himself with continuing his story. “I have told you that Basil did not like me, but not how he eventually came to do so. Now I shall fill in the gaps in the narrative.” 

“When he first came to stay with me, our dear old friend kept to his studio all day and night - with little of the social decorum he now has some claim to, and certainly none for me, though I was his host and even patron in those days. During this period of months I profess my interest in sponsorship flickered and waned like a neglected candle-flame, and I went away to stay with an old Oxford acquaintance in the interval of summer and autumn.” As Lord Henry spoke, his fingers rubbed carefully careless circles against Dorian’s shoulder. The young lad’s comely face still wore that lovely flush, but he did not move towards him - or away. Lord Henry took that as a silent sign to continue. 

“When I returned, it was fall. By this time, fresh from my leisurely but decidedly ascetic time in the countryside, I was ready to reacquaint myself with the joys of the city - and had all but forgotten about my residential artist. It was only until past evening when my servants informed me of the costs Mr Hallward had racked up from purchase of art materials - and if I would be approving the substantial reimbursements thereof - that I recalled our mutual friend. This was before my matrimonial situation, of course; Victoria would never have left a curious creature like Basil alone - or with much time to do his painting. Thus after a reassuringly Bacchic London dinner I headed for the adjoining apartment Basil was using as his studio. The yellow-brown dead leaves were crunching under my feet. I remember feeling myself in a rather insouciant mood as I approached; and perfectly ready to foot all of my residential artist’s bills if he only proved to be doing anything mildly amusing. But when I opened the door to that studio it was quite another emotion which overcame me. Imagine! - a chilly autumn night, with one half of London curled by the fireside with a cup of hot tea and the other tucked away in the wrong bed, and there he was, attacking away at his canvas in a fit of fervent creation not unlike a murder of passion, barely dressed for the season - starch-white Oxford shirt bunching up at his elbows as he painted in rapid, concise strokes. He barely noticed me, I believe; the artistic rapture that had overcome him was so complete that he could sense nothing but his art. You know as well as I do that Basil is not a comely man - handsome, perhaps, but not in your manner, sweet Dorian - but in that moment I was struck by the marked, contrasting harmony between his rough, swift motions and his delicate, fragile art. In that moment he was really quite beautiful. And it was then that _I_ began to fall.” 

Throughout his story Lord Henry kept a slyly observing eye on his audience. Under his subtly weighted gaze and speech, Dorian’s skin took on a feverish tone. A flinch rippled through him as the young lord’s fingers slid up to the juncture between shoulder and neck as he ended his story. 

But what he saw in those rapidly dilating pupils was not just fear. Apprehension, morbid curiosity, and yes, even desire - Lord Henry’s heart gave a queer jerk. For a friendship which had sown its seeds in the pleasure of looking upon Beauty - and indeed, grew everyday by it - it did now seem that its ascension into carnal desire was come strangely late. 

_But, well -_ Lord Henry thought privately, _it is still not too late to remedy that oversight._

“He understands me more than perhaps any other in this world, or the next, Dorian,” he whispered, and took the young lad’s shudder as one of pleasure. The faintly foreign-smelling scent in the room curled around them like an sensual cloak, curtaining them off from the world of the conscious. 

From there on it was no difficulty to lean in and find Dorian’s lips with his own. 

The young lad’s mouth felt as supple under his touch as any ripe fruit. As sweet, too; and when he gently insinuated his tongue past parted lips he tasted the foreign scent once more - only now it seemed the most blissfully intoxicating substance to him. 

The effect was intensely stimulating. Without consciously willing it his eyes had fallen shut as he chased the heavy cloying flavor and the mind-releasing pleasure it inspired.

When he slowly opened them again, relishing the agonizing pleasure of delayed gratification, he was struck by the sight of their dear friend Basil standing right behind their mutual friend.

Lord Henry’s distracted eyes slid towards the door, but saw it shut once more. The unruly steward must have admitted him at some prior point without his master’s permission. But did that mean that he had seen them - and did _that_ mean it was a common enough occurrence in this estate that it warranted no alarm, nor even secrecy to another guest? Or were his two friends long indulged in this Greek manner, and he the only fool left in the dark? Poor old Harry Wotton. He did not know. He could not quite think clearly. His mind was a dizzying blur; a stream of heightened sensations clouded it in a pleasurable haze.

He lay back on the couch, still fuzzily bemused, mouth parted and suddenly parched as he waited for his old friend to say something befitting his typically disapproving self.

Basil’s face was obscured in the shadow. He was in a white shirt ironed too many times, interchangeable with the other articles in the artist’s cheap wardrobe, like the one he had worn on the day the young lord’s libertine heart developed a new love. Above this he had only a simple deerskin vest - hardly sufficient attire for the weather outside. From his position on the couch he could see no coat hanging by the doorside; although he supposed the steward would have carried it off to the cloakroom. 

“Are… are you back from your travels so soon?” Lord Henry managed to utter. The words were sticky and clung to his dry throat. There was perspiration lining the insides of his pale palms. He did not know why. 

The artist lifted his head of curls in reply. His expression was one of grim disappointment, its effect compounded by the strange greyish cast the light gave him. 

In his confused state of mind, Lord Henry gazed upon his ruggedly handsome visage almost helplessly. “I…” 

As he struggled speak the unfamiliar emotion of guilt welled up in his chest. What? They had been intimate once; but he was Harry Wotton, and Harry Wotton lavished his affections as liberally as the free wind. Basil had never caught him _in flagrante,_ that was true, but they both knew the young lord was never bound to any one lover - not even in the dear old days of their cohabitation. Life was far too short and fleeting to restrain oneself to the pleasure of a sole delight and pass over other joys when the former proved absent. 

So what was it now? Was it because Basil had now seen him with Dorian, his perfect, rosy muse? Did he imagine the young lord was corrupting the youth, when he must surely have guessed this unfolding even at the start of his reluctant introduction of his friends! And Dorian was surely no longer an innocent to such pleasures; years of Lord Henry’s urging influence had passed over him like quill over paper, although in this case the ink appeared invisible. The young lord waited with shallow breaths for a condemnation, an outburst, anything. 

But still Basil did not utter a word. Directly his hands went to Dorian’s hips, where his callused artist’s fingers crimped rich velvet silk in stark contrast. Basil himself stepped closer, now almost entirely in the young lad’s shadow. His flint-flecked eyes stared steelily above his shoulder at the seated lord. 

Throughout this interlude their mutual muse had remained quite silent. But no longer; now Dorian moaned softly as if touched by some unknowable torment. The young lad’s head tilted up, revealing the exquisite column of his pale bared throat. He looked as if a young Greek god come to life with all the intricate beauty of carved sculptures - a Ganymede late into his seduction by the king of the gods, perhaps, or Euripides’ Dionysus, worshipped by his rapturous cult. Only the burst of high color on his cheekbones distinguished him from the marble statues of classical yore. 

Lord Henry caught his bottom lip with his teeth and swallowed as a third possibility came to mind. Suppose Basil was not just disapproving but _jealous_ \- the idea tantalized him with its delicious irony, although the full extent of reasoning thereof eluded even himself. 

_“Harry…”_ Dorian was murmuring, his enchanting voice richly tainted with agony and desire. His eyes, as they ventured down in Lord Henry’s general direction, were dreamy. Fine-boned fingers struggled with the fastenings of his own nightgown with trembling fervour. 

Without conscious thought, Lord Henry was assisting him in disrobing. His hands were alternately warmed when they rested over Dorian’s, and chilled when they brushed against Basil’s lingering fingers. The difference in temperature was easily explained in his clouded mind by the latter’s recent sojourn in the weather outside. 

Together, they relieved Dorian of his garment, which fell open at his front and pooled around his shoulders most becomingly; indeed, so becomingly that Lord Henry was content to leave it there for its rich contrast of deep purple against pale skin. 

“Some disguises rouse the spirit more than even complete truthful nakedness,” Lord Henry murmured breathlessly, rather roused himself as he drew Dorian out from underneath his loosened gown. Like all other things about the lad, it was really rather a work of art, the girth of it pleasing in his hand in its half-roused state. “Wouldn't you agree, dear Basil?” 

The young lad’s timely gasp turned into a choked groan as Lord Henry chose that moment to lave his tongue around the tip of his cock. “Harry - !” Hands flew to land briefly on his hair, before hesitating and gripping onto his clad shoulders instead. 

“Patience, dear boy,” the young lord reprimanded lightly, humming as he took in the sight of the golden-haired Adonis falling into the throes of passion above him. And behind him - behind him Basil, his old friend, reconciled with him at last in the realm of carnal pleasures. 

Basil’s face was a study in chiaroscuro. Grey from the shadows and sheet-white from the light, a struggle between passionate emotion and stoic restraint. But at last, at long last, one seemed to have won out over the other. For the artist himself had opened the front of his trousers, and was now pushing himself between Dorian’s bare thighs, which fell apart trembling.

_See?_ Lord Henry thought to himself in delirious amusement. _All of the tiresome rows we might have avoided, if we had only done this right from the start._

Dorian made the most exquisite sounds under their dual assaults, at times leaning back into Basil’s tight, controlled thrusts and at others straining forwards into Lord Henry’s skilled mouth. His voice, a sweet tenor, harmonized beautifully with the artist’s baritone and the young lord’s own slyly seductive music. 

For a time the trio of them were consumed together in this hedonistic, mindless manner. What a picture they must make to any passing eye! Lord Henry quietly regretted not advising Dorian to set up a mirror in this drawing-room. Even any duller sort of reflective surface would do. Oh, the art he very well knew Basil could make of it! _A Picture of the Artist as a Debauchee… Or perhaps Mr. Gray Receiving His Guests._ His thoughts floated away on lurid angel's wings as his fingers concentrated on the task at hand. 

Dorian’s thighs were slender but well-muscled, quite satisfactorily distinguishable from any maiden’s - and chill as marble. Except where Basil’s cock was thrusting steadily away between them - there he ran feverishly hot to rival any desert Lord Henry had ever had the mixed pleasure of visiting. 

That gave the young lord an idea. He pulled his mouth away for the moment - gently shushing Dorian’s restraining cry - and reached between to take both his friends in hand. The angle made it rather difficult, but Lord Henry managed to slide his hand in a way that established a pleasurable rhythm. 

In between strokes Dorian protested, “Harry, what are you doing -?” But the short-lived opposition was cut off as the young lord teased at his tip with his tongue. Then his voice once more dissolved into the most melodious moans. 

Their combined heat was warm in his hand; as was Basil’s slick cock when it rubbed against his chin on the upstroke. Lord Henry vaguely considered taking them both into his mouth simultaneously - then regretfully cast the idea aside. His old friend was of considerable size; that he knew from experience. 

Instead he settled for swallowing the young lad down to the root. From Dorian’s stuttering fingers on his shoulders, he could tell his young friend was close to release. Now they dug in with surprisingly viciousness; although Lord Henry supposed he of all should not judge what others did in the throes of passion. 

The sweet scent he'd chased after in Dorian’s mouth was stronger than ever now - although it was less a substance in the air now than an overwhelming sensation which enveloped him in a heady dreamworld of flesh and feverish bodies.

Lord Henry could almost blame it on that then, rather than some misplaced form of old sentimentality, for his abrupt desire to reach out for Basil with his free hand. 

His old friend’s palm, when he grasped it in his own, was chill but strangely damp. Lord Henry lifted his mouth from Dorian’s cock to gaze into Basil’s eyes - and found the artist staring down at him with an intense look of determination. His traitorously ignoble heart missed a beat.

Then Basil reached around Dorian to ram his head straight down onto his own cock. 

There was no dancing around it; for all of his self-professed mastery in the carnal arts, Lord Henry choked immediately. The artist’s sizeable length was a menace even when proper preparation was made, both in the faculties of the mind and orifice - and without it it was a monstrous tool thrust straight down his unsuspecting throat.

He made a wordless exclamation of protest, but it was mercilessly muffled from where his face was buried between the most intimate parts of two bodies. He was vaguely aware of Dorian’s neglected cock pressed up against his cheek, still rock-hard and leaking liquid he would have taken pleasure in tasting under any other circumstances - were he not very much otherwise preoccupied. 

It was near too much; the heat and pressure of the position and the power of the artist’s thrusts conspired to suffocate him altogether. 

And yet the whole situation was entirely exciting. It was a novelty - no, even a first; for Basil to take the lead in their relations, and such a remarkably forceful lead at that! Nothing could be more delightful to Lord Henry than this new turn in a relationship he had long thought dead as nails. But if his old friend sought to press him into dull submission with this new trick to dominate him, he would have to be sorely disappointed. Harry Wotton was not in the habit of receiving without taking in turn.

Instead of struggling away, the young lord relaxed his abused throat as best he could - and proceeded to ravenously swallow as much of Basil’s cock as he could manage. 

The feel of it, hot and heavy on his tongue and thick enough to fill his mouth, was intoxicating in his already aroused state. His own neglected cock stiffened further in the confines of his tailored pants. Distantly he heard Dorian murmuring something; but could not quite register it over the hazy heat that had descended over him and his own muffled sounds of exertion. 

At least Basil himself appeared equally affected. Cool fingers wound in his meticulously combed hair, roughly tugging and relenting in rhythm. Lord Henry moaned; tears were burning in the corners of his eyes, and bright lights were beginning to flash in his vision. It was both all too overwhelming and entirely, utterly heavenly. He couldn't last much longer. 

And yet the artist kept going. He drove himself into the young lord’s panting mouth with the stoic persistence he painted with, the needlepoint concentration that had first drawn Lord Henry to him. With a particularly hard thrust, he lodged himself deep into Lord Henry’s throat, and declined to withdraw himself for a long moment. The young lord’s vision whited out entirely. 

When he came back to himself, his mouth was still hanging open. He was breathing fast and hard. There was the taste of white release on his tongue, and a sticky sensation suggested more of the same painted across his face. He was a canvas then; a private passion Basil had spilled his own self onto - rather literally. What could be more flattering, coming from a true artist like Basil? Lord Henry laughed dazedly. 

“Harry… You _must_ allow me to reciprocate.” That was Dorian, getting down onto his knees on his exquisite Turkish carpets. He made a pretty picture as always, purple robe pooling on the rich brown floor, and that beautiful face blooming with sated desire. Lord Henry blinked; it was only then that he realized the young lad too must have spent in his moment of distraction. It went to reason then that the residue on his face was a mix of both his friends’ seeds. On reflex alone, he nicked a finger across his face and ran his tongue along the white mess with a self-satisfied smile.

Dorian’s eyes darkened with renewed desire. He leaned forwards on his knees and reached for the young lord’s pants. The implication was clear. Accommodatingly, Lord Henry stood, still quite in a daze. 

His own numb fingers were rather useless for once in popping the buttons, but Dorian’s skillful digits made quick work of them. He felt a rush of chill wind - and then he was fully exposed to the queer elements swirling around them. Lord Henry was more conscious than ever of the sweet scent in the air, which seemed to linger cloyingly in the hazy reaches of his mind. _Something is… not quite right…_

The young lad paused in consideration of his length, which had wilted considerably from his momentary loss of consciousness. A look of something approaching disappointment surfaced on Dorian’s comely face, then dissipated without a trace as he curled a warm hand around him. But a strange chill touched Lord Henry’s heart; there was something disturbing about that expression turned on him, for all that he had been the one who taught it to Dorian. 

And yet, even with the throbbing sense of aught amiss, the flesh would not be denied. Under Dorian’s skillful ministrations, Lord Henry found himself filling with blood once more. “Dorian…” The name tasted raw in his ravaged throat. It occurred to him that he had not spoken a single word throughout this entire rendezvous - a fact which was as unnatural to him as the perplexing haze of his thoughts.

“Oh, fuss not, Harry - what was it you said? Ah, yes - ‘all things grow better with teasing application of delay.’” The young lad replied. Lord Henry was too bewildered to tell him that although that was most certainly a misquotation, he never remembered any of the philosophies he put forth, and hence could not dispute it. 

Looking closely into Dorian’s face he perceived that a change had come upon the young man. No longer was he the darkly brooding lost youth desperate for Lord Henry’s reassuring hand. Now assured confidence lined his words, and he grinned as he lowered his golden curls to press a teasing kiss down the line of the young lord’s still-clothed hips. 

When he finally ceased his cruel teasing and took Lord Henry into his mouth, the young lord closed his mind and surrendered himself to simple, amoral pleasure.

Lord Henry’s mind stuttered as he tried to reconcile his arousal and his foreboding senses. Dorian’s mouth was warm and tight; and if the young lord had ever doubted the depth of his indulgence in the flesh before, he knew now that Dorian was entirely his protege in this regard. The way the young lad worked at him with tongue and a delicate application of teeth was ample proof of his experience. 

From this titillating angle, Dorian’s petal-spread lips were sinfully red. They glistened when they caught the light of the chandelier hanging above. The young lad’s eyelashes fluttered closed momentarily as he hummed in apparent enjoyment around his cock. Golden curls crowned his fair face like a bright halo. He radiated both innocence and sin, an angel and siren in one body. 

Lord Henry had never been one to deny neither temptation nor beauty. He reached down to cup a rose-red cheek, mesmerized by the way it hollowed under his long fingers rhythmically. Dorian gazed slyly up at him from under a lock of hair that had come loose and now stuck to his forehead. The knowing look in his confident eyes made the young lord’s heart inexplicably thud harder in his panting chest. 

And all through it Basil stood towering behind Dorian, a hulking, watchful shadow. He had a hand on his muse’s shoulder - although in restraint or in encouragement for what he was doing, Lord Henry could no longer tell. 

As he lifted his eyes from their golden haired youth, his old friend slid the same hand up his neck until it rested on the young lord’s own. Then Basil joined their hands together with a firmness bordering on desperation. Lord Henry was surprised to find that the artist’s hand was trembling noticeably from some unknown exertion. 

The back of his hand was now pressed directly against the beating pulse on the side of Dorian’s neck. Lord Henry stared at the juncture of their interlocked selves. Months of subtle games and mutual secrets, and this was where it had led them, all three of them. He had thought the one long out of reach and the other’s ascension to hedonism his private project, but now that they were finally joined together in this manner it seemed only the most natural thing in the world. 

Basil’s face was still shaded in darkness. There seemed to be a terrible ambiguity in the way he stood, so still and silent, when his hand was gripping onto Lord Henry’s with crushing force. It filled him with the same inexplicable dread he was becoming rather desperate to dispel, which distracted him even from Dorian’s sweet, divine mouth. Heart thudding in his chest, the young lord pulled Basil forward and put his mouth to his. 

The artist’s lips were cold; as cold as Dorian was warm. And yet his passions ran hot enough - their teeth clicked together more than once as each enthusiastically reacquainted themselves with the other. They _fit_ together, even after all the years that had passed between them since they first did this, on the couch in that makeshift art studio. 

In that one moment Lord Henry was really very sorry for ever having let Basil leave his life. 

And still between them knelt Dorian, who was perhaps for once the least penitent of them all. 

Lord Henry watched them, his two greatest friends, entwined and entangled in a delightfully debauched union. The artist’s mouth was moving down the side of his neck, alternating with stinging bites and darkly whispered words. His muse glanced coyly up at him through long eyelashes, red lips stretched obscenely wide around his cock.

The pleasure coiled deep in his stomach crested, and then exploded all at once in a flash of supernova light before his eyes. 

When he returned to his senses, he was sitting down once more on the couch. Dorian stood before the shut curtains, half his profile facing away from Lord Henry. It was reminiscent of his position when the young lord had first interrupted him from his despair. 

Except there was no trace of distress now on the young lad’s comely face. No, all signs of despondency were quite vanished from that poised brow; and in its stead was a vindicated, confident air. The look of it on his face filled Lord Henry with a strange apprehension, instead of the usual pride at having wrought some sort of change in Dorian. 

Lord Henry was still attempting to regain his faculties. The room seemed to blur around its edges wherever he turned to look. Basil was gone, he noticed belatedly; as suddenly as he had come. The mysterious scent in the air was very faint now, dissipating with every passing moment. 

As the pleasurable high from their encounter faded away, Lord Henry was filled with a terribly sobering sense of loss. He of course had not expected any sort of miraculous antidote for all their estranged relationships just from a moment of distracted passion - and yet was profoundly disturbed to discover that the liaison he initiated had strangely taken more pleasure than it gave him. 

In bygone dreamy imaginings of entangling with the young lad in this carnal manner, he had always envisioned Dorian falling further under his influence by the end of their rendezvous. But now it seemed the opposite had transpired.

Another few minutes passed in foreboding silence. At length, Dorian turned from the window towards the young lord. 

“I really must thank you, Harry. Forgive me - I did once doubt you in a moment of darkness. But now I know the depth of your affection for me, and I fear you no longer for guarding my secrets. And know too that you are dear to me. You know that I owe much of my current life to you - and today you have exceeded even that. You have renewed it to me.”

A smirking smile curled his lips, now filled with its original color and still swollen from their earlier pleasure. “Yes, I feel rather restored. My soul, so heavy from imagined sins only mere hours before - is cleansed. Yes, only imaginary, and not cleansed, for it has always been pure. For am I not as I always have been? Is not my countenance, and general manner, exactly as it was when you first met me?”

Faintly, the young lord answered, “No, in manner you are quite utterly changed.” The words sounded weak even to himself. His flair for moving speeches had quite deserted him for the day. 

Dorian smiled, tilting his head down at Lord Henry. “Yes, I admit that. I am not, and no longer possess the thoughts of, the youth who waited on Basil’s attentions. I am quite entirely your creation in Hedonism now - perhaps more even than that.”

Under the flickering half-light of the chandelier, Dorian’s beautiful face was bathed in an ethereal, eerie glow. The young lord misliked the look he wore, innocently delighted and lightly condescending as only a freshly vindicated child could be. It was as if the young lad knew something he did not, and was luxuriating in its safety in his secrecy.

And yet for the life of him Lord Henry could not even guess at what it was.

“And is it not all as you wished?”

-

By the time Lord Henry stepped out onto the cobbled pavement of the street, it was growing dark outside. 

There was no one in sight. He briefly wondered where Basil had left in such a hurry for without him, after their heartfelt reconnection. 

A stray streetlamp stood valiantly against the gathering gloom, the sole illumination for yards around. 

Above, Dorian’s windows and curtains were pulled shut, blocking out all else. He had a lingering premonition that he would not be seeing the young lad for some time. 

Shivering with some unspeakable sensation beyond the winter cold, Lord Henry turned away before the light went out.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! :)
> 
> or if you're here for the content warnings, here they are in order of appearance: canon-typical power plays/manipulation, dubious consent (both Lord Henry and Dorian are under the influence of a hallucinatory scent), general ambiguity, implied but never explicit canon character death/can be interpreted as canon divergence AU where character is alive (Schrodinger's Basil), canon typical moral ambiguity (pls do advice if u feel i've left sth out!!)


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